Talk:2006 FIFA World Cup full team ranking

Original Research

By what authority is the goal difference shown in this table calculated by including goals scored in the knockout stages? Goal difference is only of significance during the group stages. To take a hypothetical situation, if two teams get knocked out in the second round or, "round of 16" as FIFA insist on calling it, had a goal difference from the group stages of of +1 and +3 respectively and the first team loses in the "round of 16" by 1:0 while the second loses 5:0, if these goals are added to the overall goal difference the relative positions are reversed. This kind of criteria that is used in this table and has not been demonstatred elsewhere constitutes original research. Jooler 13:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

As can be seen in 2006 FIFA World Cup seeding and [1], in the 2002 Cup, England 6th and Senegal 7th, while Sweden ranked 13th and Belgium 14th. For the first pairing: In group play, each team had 5 points and +1 GD (Senegal 5-4, England 2-1). England won their second round game by 3, while Senegal's win was by 1, and they each lost their quarterfinal by 1. Thus England with a total GD of +3 ranks ahead of Senegal's +1 (each had 8 points). For the second pairing: each team had 5 points and +1 GD (Belgium 6-5, Sweden 4-3), but Sweden's second round loss was by 1 and Belgium's was by 2, so Sweden ranked ahead of Belgium. As regards penalties awarding one point, I believe I deduced that from the 1998 Cup, but I don't have time to look that up now.

In summary, yes, I can concede this seems to be original research in feeling out the ranking criteria. However, the file linked above is unambiguous, so at the very least, such a table can be put up for past World Cup's, and for this one should that PDF be updated. Jonpin 04:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

In 1950 a number of teams withdrew before the start of the competition and groups were of uneven sizes. Poor old Bolivia ended up a in a group of two with the eventual winners Uruguay. They only played one game in the group stage which they lost. Mexico played 3 group games and lost them all. Yet Mexico is placed above Bolivia (presumably because of goal difference/average). Bolivia weren't given a chance to redeem themselves with a win or a draw, because they had no-one to play. It is plainly unfair to place Bolivia last in this instance. The 1934 positions of Argentina, France and Netherlands (9th,10th and 11th respectively) appear to be based on nothing more than their alphabetic order as their performances in the competition were all exactly the same (they each lost 3-2 in the first round). where points are even the rankings appear to be based upon goal difference. Goal difference was not used in the World Cup finals until 1970. The scheme commonly used in other competitions during the earlier history of football was goal average. Goal average was first used in the World Cup finals in 1962, and even then it was only used after two teams has already played a play-off and drawn; it was the last resort before drawing lots. Before 1962 goal difference was not even a factor lots would have been drawn directly after a play-off if the result was a draw. In these rankings how is the goal-difference affected by these extra play-off games? are the results of these matches added to the team relative goal difference/average? Using goal average instead of goal difference can result in strikingly different results. If you're going to start retrospectively using modern criteria like goal difference to rank the teams then why not retrospectively award 3 points for a win instead of two for all competitions before 1978 and then re-rank the teams accordingly. Making such choices is highly selective. FIFA's normal ranking system is well-known to be flawed. The kind of bogus statistical comparison used for the WC rankings also amounts to a statistical fraud comparing apples to oranges. Clearly if one team are in a group of death and another team in a "group of life" it is patently unfair to compare their relative performances as you would if they playing the same teams in a league competition. In normal knockout competitions (like the FA Cup) a team's performance is guaged by stating round in which the went out, If Man Utd lose to Liverpool 1:0 in the semi-final they are not ranked above Wigan losing 2:0 to Chelsea. They are just both shown as semi-finalists. In the WC they play a 3rdp-place play-off so in reality the only positions that should be recognised are Winner Runner-up, 3rd and 4th. Jooler 09:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No, only first place can be determined with certainty in any knockout tournament. And with penalty shootouts merely a lottery, nobody should be recognised in 2006. Getting back to the "original research" question": it's not clear from the linked FIFA document when the rankings for each tournament were calculated. I know they've been doing it for a while, but I suspect the early years have been calculated retrospectively. It doesn't invalidate the 2006 article. But if there are ones for earlier tournaments they may need a caveat. jnestorius^(talk) 14:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion

i created 2006 FIFA World Cup statistics to combine goalscorers, final ranking and possibly other statistics. I think this page is not necessary anymore. Mltinus^(talk) 11:40, 7 July 2010 (GMT+1)